


another lesson learned in blood

by sunspot (unavoidedcrisis)



Category: Horizon: Zero Dawn (Video Game)
Genre: Blood and Injury, Canon-Typical Violence, Eat It Tramplers (but honestly thank you so so much), F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Pining, Violence Against Machines
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-20
Updated: 2019-10-20
Packaged: 2020-12-27 03:56:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,644
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21112271
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unavoidedcrisis/pseuds/sunspot
Summary: In a split second, Erend makes a choice that could either A, kill him, or B, make him reveal something painfully personal. He's not sure which outcome would be worse.





	another lesson learned in blood

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Sumi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sumi/gifts).

> Canon-typical violence against machine enemies, some descriptions of injuries incurred.

Just when it seems like the day's going all right, it goes rapidly to shit.

Erend's not sure why or how because Aloy's shot went straight through the watcher's eyestalk, but instead of going down, the machine rears and screeches. Three tramplers come charging over the ridge and Aloy rolls into the water to avoid them. She comes up dripping water and with a streak of blood across her cheekbone.

His heart wants to leap out of his chest, but he's just startled by the machines and not the sight of her bleeding. That's what he tells himself while the fear is rapidly replaced by anger.

Erend lets loose with two arrows at once, not having anywhere near the grace with it that Aloy has, but he hits the first one with a satisfying _thunk-thunk._ It goes down momentarily and distracts the other two long enough for Aloy to scramble back up the bank. She pulls out her spear and nearly slices the watcher in half with the force of her swing.

He smashes the downed one with the heel of his boot, cracking the lens; the light flickers out almost instantly. Erend looks up in time to see Aloy wheeling around with her hair streaming out behind her like a banner.

She jams a hardpoint arrow into a tiny crevice on the flank of a trampler without even trying to fire it from her bow. Just jabs it in like a knife and gives it a twist. Protective plating flies off and the machine makes a grating screech as it drops.

Erend makes a mental note to get Aloy a dagger. He's seen her with a hunting knife, but knows she keeps it in her pack and only uses it for cleaning game. She needs a proper combat knife, something she can wield safely when an enemy gets in too close to her.

The last trampler is bigger than the first two, somehow, and it stares them down. Its hooves scrape the dirt to expose bare rock as it makes its stand. Aloy nocks two arrows and rolls her shoulders, lifting her bow and squaring off.

Watching her, it's impossible to not be impressed. She moves like a wild animal -- all instinct and sharp eyes. When Erend watches her like this, hunting, fighting, he doesn't want to take his eyes off her. Not that he has a choice at the moment. The whine from the Trampler is rapidly getting higher pitched and that can't be a good sign.

They've been traveling together and fighting side-by-side for long enough now that they barely need to speak in combat to know what the other's thinking. Aloy glances sidelong at him and Erend nods. The Trampler seems to be watching them, but of course it doesn't have eyes, and even if it did, Erend doesn't think machines are psychic. Yet.

He charges to the right and lets out a yell. Erend's great at being the bait. Aloy has corrected him a few times when he says that -- _'a diversion,'_ she says. _'You're not bait, Erend, nothing's going to eat you.'_ (And that's comforting, except she puts too much emphasis on the word 'you,' like she thinks he'd taste terrible. That part stings a little.)

Erend's shouting, bumbling diversion coupled with Aloy's grace, precision, and stealth is usually a winning combo and they end whatever battle they're fighting on a high note. Except the odd time when it doesn't work, like right now. She rolls away and into the tall grass while Erend shouts abuse at the machine, but the Trampler is trained on her.

As it starts to charge, Erend shouts for Aloy to move, to run, even as he lets an arrow fly, followed by a fist-sized rock, a last ditch attempt at distraction. It's a waste of a rock; he's not got half of Aloy's precision or knack for fitting arrows between armored plates, and his projectiles glance off harmlessly into the grass.

The next few moments seem to take a month to pass. Erend sees the space between Aloy and the machine shrinking even as she's leaping and rolling away, calculates the time she's got left to stick her landing and get back to her feet before the Trampler is on her, and she won't make it.

He's in motion almost before he realizes. He comes to a high point in the ground and uses it to launch himself up and forward, and then he's in the air when time seems to return to its normal pace.

With a bone-rattling crunch, Erend crashes into the armored side of the Trampler and miraculously, knocks it off balance. Everything is a sudden mish-mash of his own limbs, torn up grass and plants, and metal and sparks from the Trampler. He hears Aloy shout over the sound of moving water, the crunch of scrub underneath him, the squealing and grating of the machine, all over the steady background of his own wild pulse.

In the tumble that ensues while he and the machine each try to right themselves and kill the other, Erend bangs almost every bone, tendon, joint, and organ he's got. He grits his teeth at one point and tastes blood. Probably too much to hope that it's not his.

There's metal and wiring crushing his right hand in the tangle of man and machine. Erend feels the skin of his knuckles split and then somehow, a second miracle in about as many seconds: the spiky edge of the Trampler's heart is within grasp. Twisting his fingers to reach feels like it might break his wrist for a moment, but then it comes free and the Trampler immediately deactivates and stops trying to stamp him to death. The miracles keep rolling in.

There's a flash of her red hair in his vision and he hears Aloy's scream. He jumped too late and all this pain he's earned himself didn't do anything to keep her from some. Erend's an idiot, this he's known for ages, but he truly feels like one now.

"Erend?! Erend, are you…" Aloy's pulling pieces off the Trampler and throwing them away trying to extricate him from the snarled mess of the fight.

"I'm fine," he says. He's not sure which way is rightways up yet and he feels blood wetting his chin when he speaks, but she's okay enough to be worried about _him_. His plan worked and yeah, that means he's fine. For a given definition of 'plan,' 'worked,' and 'fine,' he thinks, feeling the bones in his shoulder grate together when Aloy pulls the heaviest chunk of Trampler off of him.

Erend bites off a gasp when he tries to stand and his knees have other plans. Aloy grabs him, too rough, and helps him straighten up. "I'm okay, I'm in one piece," he tells her.

Aloy scoffs. "You'd probably be better off in two, at this point." Her tone is terse, bitten-off.

His vision is clearing and he knows which direction he's facing now, so he can start cataloguing his injures. But not here, not in the open surrounded by destroyed Tramplers and the fuckin' Watcher that started all this. He tries to take a few steps to reach the pack he dropped when the machines sprang out at them, but he's unsteady on his feet.

Aloy shoulders his pack and hers, and helps him off the road. Slowly, they follow the river downwind a bit, until they reach a quiet patch of dirt between the trees and the water where Aloy can help him to the ground. She's glowering at everything, at him, the forest, her own bow.

The guilt and embarrassment rises in his throat like bile. Also, there's bile rising in his throat. He took too many knocks to the gut and did about twenty-too-many somersaults. Now he's put them behind immeasurably and Aloy probably would have been fine. He's a fool, an idiot, an ass, and everything else, except, it turns out, a good diversion.

"Tell me what hurts," she asks, crouching next to him on her heels. Aloy's already slung her pack down next to his and is rummaging through for the bundle of herb he knows she carries.

"Everything," he says, as honest as he is miserable and stiff.

Aloy sighs. "At least tell me where to start fixing you up. Can't have you bleeding to death in your sleep because you're too prideful to let me help."

"Not prideful," Erend promises. "Just stupid."

She unhooks her waterskin and tips a splash onto a square of clean cloth, dabbing it over the cut on his chin. Erend tries to will himself still even as she leans in and repositions his face with her free hand on the back of his head. He's unsuccessful, surprise surprise, and he moves into Aloy's touch far too eagerly.

"Careful," she chides. He's about to reply something to the tune of why would he suddenly start now, but she's right, of course. Having her this close to him when he's not thinking straight and could say anything is by far the most reckless thing he's done today.

Aloy's good to him and good for him. She helps him stay level-headed when he wants to be an unreasonable, drunken prick. She's welcomed him to travel with her and covered his back in fights more times then he could ever count. When they stop to rest, day or evening, she's got a quip and a pat on the back for him, and damn, does it almost feel like home with her. He's not going to jeopardize any of that just because he feels like the first idiot to ever watch the sun rise every time Aloy smiles.

She doesn't even have to smile _at him_. A few days back, a mother rabbit and her three little rabbit kids were messing around at the edge of their makeshift camp. Erend walked up with kindling while Aloy watched in silence, with a soft, almost sad smile, as the little rabbits tumbled over each other and hopped around under their mother's watchful eyes. His heart nearly broke to see her then, just too full of feelings for her that he couldn't express it coherently if he tried.

Aloy moves on to his knuckles and Erend sucks a sharp breath in between his teeth when she uncorks a little vial of something astringent-smelling over the wounds.

She wraps his knuckles in a long strand of cloth and when she's done, she doesn't drop his hand right away. Aloy presses her fingertips onto wrapping on the back of his hand, over the broken skin. Erend can barely feel pressure, she's so gentle with him, but he does feel the warmth from her. And he can smell her hair from this close, like dried grass and clean wind, a little like sweat. Mostly, he can feel her eyes on him. That's a completely different sensation, one he wants badly to welcome, but knows he hasn't even half earned yet.

"I'm sorry," he says. It's words and feelings unbidden. Erend frowns at himself.

Aloy sighs. She does that a lot when he's around, he thinks. "What are you sorry for?"

Out of any response, he wasn't really expecting that. "What?"

"Why are you sorry? What are you apologizing for? You saved my life, Erend. That thing was a second from flattening me, and you… You could have died."

"You _would_ have died," he says. "I've got better armor than you, right, and you can't say I'm not bigger."

"You didn't have to do that, Erend."

She's said his name twice in ten seconds, he notices. When it's the two of them, when they're not in Meridian or Free Heap, they barely use names at all. It's pretty obvious who you're talking to when there's only one other living soul for miles. She's really mad, he figures. She's trying to put distance between them like she would when there are others around.

"You just said it would have killed you," he pointed out.

"Yes, but…" she shakes her head, the beads in her hair clicking together in a familiar way. "Let me try again. Never, ever save my life like that again."

He frowns. The cut on his chin threatens to open again. "You got a deathwish now?"

"_Do you?_"

Erend's taken aback. She's never snapped at him like that, not even when he's been fall-down drunk, swaying and slurring.

"No, 'course not,"_not anymore, not since you_, "I just… Didn't want to see you get hurt, is all. I'm sorry."

"I thought you were dead for a minute there. If I lost you, Erend, I'd..." she trails off. Her quiet, even voice is back. She's still holding his hand. _Oh,_ the brightest part of his brain thinks, even as the rest of mind is scrambling to figure it out.

Aloy kisses him then, as gentle and barely-there as her fingers on his hand.

_Oh._

** _Oh._ **

He kisses back with too much enthusiasm and she pulls back and bites off a breathy sigh.

"Sorry," he says, thinking it must be the five hundredth time in an hour. Kind of a different feeling when she's pressing their foreheads together and laughing softly. He wants to close his eyes and drink in this moment, but he's done way too much drinking in his life already and the way her eyelashes rest against her cheek is so damn mesmerizing.

"Stop apologizing to me," she says. "Just promise you won't do anything so reckless again."

"You gonna kiss me again if I promise?" Erend asks. He knows he's pushing his luck to comical degrees. He'll blame it on the blood loss or the head injury he might have if she calls him on it. But there's an unlimited amount of miracles out here today for him, and she presses their mouths together again.

The second kiss is so much better than the first, because Aloy doesn't pull away smirking when Erend's a little too desperate and she makes a noise, just a small, wordless thing that Erend swallows immediately. His chest hurts -- Erend's too happy, too lucky, too bruised.

"Sure I will," Aloy says, pulling back finally. "As many times as you need to learn that I'm serious."

"A thousand. Twenty thousand." Erend wonders how high he could talk her up to.

"At least," she promises. Her laugh is a beautiful, rounded, ringing sound and it's a balm for his bruised bones and split skin and, yeah, he's gone on her and he'll never recover.

* * *

The next morning, well before dawn, the ache of his ribs wakes him. Erend moves to roll over, to try and find a better position to be in to take a strain off that side, but lo and behold, there's Aloy, tucked up in his bedroll, taking up his space.

He may just be imagining, but the pain in his chest fades substantially when he slides his arm around her waist and she hums in her sleep and moves back towards him. Her hair smells so good, like nature and fresh air and that uniquely Aloy scent that makes sparks fly behind his eyes. Erend kisses the back of her head, the only place he can reach without waking her.

They had such a good thing going, traveling together, watching each other's backs, making the wilderness safer for regular folk who wanted to travel, and unraveling all the mysteries that Aloy was so keen on. It was nice, for a long, long time, and Erend never wanted to ruin that by chasing something _more_ and then ending up with nothing.

This is not nothing. This is everything, he figures. And if all he had to do was chase this 'something more' into the side of a Trampler, well fuck, he coulda done that months ago.

**Author's Note:**

> Big thank you to chat for their super smrt help, and to Rella for beta-ing. <3
> 
> And thanks to Sumi, for great prompts and great tropes :D


End file.
